In the fabrication of semiconductor components, for example laser chips, handling of the material during various phases of the fabrication can become critical due to the possibility of damage to the material. Usually, the semiconductor material is in the form of a wafer including a two dimensional array of devices, and the wafer is cut up into bars including a row of devices and finally into chips comprising individual devices. This cutting up of the wafer can be done by any of a number of cleaving, scribing and/or breaking methods known in the art.
In a typical process, the wafer is held in place by mounting to a tape during the cleaving operation. A problem arises in attempting to remove the resulting bars or chips for further processing. Since the adhesive strength of the tape is high, the bars or chips are removed by inserting a sharp blade between the tape and the surfaces of the bars or chips. This can cause damage to the devices included within the bars or chips.
It is desirable, therefore, to provide a method whereby the material can be held in place during certain processing, and then easily removed without a significant amount of damage to devices included in the material.